ThinkLab Responsive Site

The IBM THINKLab, headquartered in the super cool, Eero Saarinen designed Thomas J. Watson Research Center, is part of the vast research arm of IBM where their scientists work in close collaboration with their clients to do things like, say, prototype new technology solutions. That doesn't sound so sexy at first. But what that means is that IBM has really smart scientists who invent all kinds of new ways to innovate and ultimately transform entire industry verticals. OK, that doesn't sound all that sexy either. Suffice it to say, D-RAM was invented there. So, there.

The THINKLab needed a way cool web site to show off how badass they are. I was brought in to make the way cool web site. Ostensibly, the site serves as a sophisticated, razzmatazz brochure directed at managers and C-suite execs who are thinking about hiring IBM to analyze their data and pave a new, successful path forward for their business.

The ThinkLab had developed a design system that used specific, three dimensional polyhedrons to represent different verticals of industry. I came up with a design that used the three dimensional shape as both the aesthetic anchor and as the transitional pivots of the parallax functionality. Since it was hard to communicate this with still comps, I designed and then animated it in After Effects to illustrate how the site flow on scroll. The animation I made is below, and it won IBM over. I ended up taking the polyhedron idea further in the site that eventually launched, where the user feels like they are entering into the polyhedron.